OCEANSIDE, N.Y. - Firefighters rescued an 80-year-old Long Island man who had fallen into a sinkhole on his front lawn.

Michael Ciron had stepped onto his lawn Sunday morning to retrieve his newspaper when he fell into an 8-foot-deep sinkhole, reports CBS Station WCBS.

"I picked up the paper, before you know it, I fell into this here hole," Ciron told WINS Newsradio's Mona Rivera.

His daughter, Maria Ciron, was awakened by his screams. "I run to his room first thinking that maybe he fell down or something," she said.

She finally found her father outside, trying to dig himself out of the sinkhole.

"Taking the dirt from the higher part, scraping it down, and I finally got my head out," Ciron told WINS. His daughter called 911, and a short time later the Oceanside fire department arrived and freed him.

Ciron said he was "very sore," but also grateful that he wasn't injured.

Ciron said he believes the sinkhole may have been the site of an old well or cesspool which caved in because of Saturday's wet weather.